I have been reflecting a lot recently on the relationship between the environmental movement and social justice. So when I learned that my friend Archana was going to be attending the BreakFree Northeast Action in Albany, NY, I asked her to write her reflections about the experience. In Albany, NY, trains holding unstable fracked oil run close to local communities, polluting the air and endangering the health and safety of people. The action was organized by 350.org to demonstrate the need to keep fossil fuels in the ground for a more just, sustainable future. I didn’t expect it when I first asked, but her story clearly represents a powerful example of how environmental and social activists fight for justice separately instead of together. Below is the piece written by Archana, an alumni member of Divest Dartmouth and a leader of the Dartmouth Alumni for Climate Action, who participated in the action in Albany on May 14.

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I have been reflecting a lot recently on the relationship between the environmental movement and social justice. So when I learned that my friend Archana was going to be attending the BreakFree Northeast Action in Albany, NY, I asked her to write her reflections about the experience. In Albany, NY, trains holding unstable fracked oil run close to local communities, polluting the air and endangering the health and safety of people. The action was organized by 350.org to demonstrate the need to keep fossil fuels in the ground for a more just, sustainable future. I didn’t expect it when I first asked, but her story clearly represents a powerful example of how environmental and social activists fight for justice separately instead of together. Below is the piece written by Archana, an alumni member of Divest Dartmouth and a leader of the Dartmouth Alumni for Climate Action, who participated in the action in Albany on May 14.

– Katie Williamson, DMI Intern

Photo credits: Bryan MacCornack, Left In Focus

“Better days are coming, comin’ oh, by and by

When we leave that oil and gas in the ground where they belong
All our troubles will be over, and the seas’ll no longer rise
Better days are coming, comin’ oh, by and by.”

One of the organizers of the Break Free Northeast mass action shared this song with us before our march to the port of Albany. Like old friends, we sang it in harmony in the halls of a church the night before the action, and the morning of, gathered in our thousands in Lincoln Park. A beautiful sentiment: keeping fossil fuels in the ground will bring a worry-free future.

Immediately after this song, a woman took the stage on behalf of the Black Lives Matter movement. As lovely as that sentiment is, she said, and however much better our lives will be, all of our troubles will certainly not be over once the oil and gas are left in the ground. Racism will still exist, she said.

I was so glad to hear this in Albany, time and again. The issue that the mass action centered around was a social justice one at its core, inextricable from race and class. The oil trains that snake through the city run close to residential areas, and sometimes park nearby overnight. These residences, like Ezra Prentice, are home to largely black and low-income communities. Children sleep mere meters from these parked trains at night, whose cars have shells that have buckled under the weight of the oil they carry in past derailments. The fumes waft over from the vents in the cars, through their open windows on summer nights.

The people in these communities have been battling the Albany authorities and the oil companies behind these trains for many years now, but to little effect. It is a textbook case in environmental racism and classism. The lives of the folks living in Ezra Prentice and surrounding communities clearly appear to matter less, their voices drowned out by the shrill ring of the cash machine.

And yet – while the Albany Break Free action did a wonderful job choosing speakers and programming to tie the racist and classist implications of the “bomb trains” to the larger environmental movement, there were clear hints of tension between the two. The sea of yellow Break Free T-shirts read “Break Free from Fossil Fuels,” and the chants of the marchers covered everything from energy (‘Hey hey, ho ho, fossil fuels have go to go’) to democracy (show me what democracy looks like? This is what democracy looks like!). But there was not one Black Lives Matter chant. The crowds of protestors were largely white, adding to this contrast.

The image of the movement that day, the pictures and articles that would appear in the papers and other media, did not reflect the full extent of the messages I had heard. Even though the Albany organizers took great strides to bring the climate justice and social justice worlds together, the disconnect between the larger Break Free movement and the everyday problems of the local community remained visible. This seemed to be the climate change movement showing up for social justice, rather than the two walking hand-in-hand.

As a student from Dartmouth pointed out to me, it is better to walk the walk than talk the talk; at least the intention and the messages hit the target, even if the image did not reflect this. Another friend of mine emphasized the importance of a focused message, and debated whether this would be diluted if we tried to bring both the fossil fuels and Black Lives Matter movements together. In my mind, it is imperative to link the two, and to do it better than we have been doing. We cannot use our frontline communities as a pawn in breaking free from fossil fuels; to do so would be an act of the highest hypocrisy. There is strength in equality and unity, and it is exactly this strength that we must harness to increase the power of our actions to come.

Recently, I have been thinking about where visioning and systems thinking fit into school classrooms. What strategies and tools could help students and young people connect with systems? Would they even find systems thinking useful for their own work and goals? So when Marta and I got invited to present in a couple classrooms in surrounding towns, we launched our own kind of experiment about systems trainings. Last fall, we designed an introductory three-hour module on systems thinking for a Sustainable Living course at Lyndon State College in northern Vermont. This past May we created a design-thinking curriculum for an AP Environmental Science class at Lebanon High School in New Hampshire. Each opportunity brought its own expectations and challenges due to each unique learning environment and group of students.

Before we arrived at Lyndon State, the professor told us we would enter an environment of pragmatism and varying levels of exposure to sustainability.

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By Katie Williamson –

Students at Lebanon High School, NH

Recently, I have been thinking about where visioning and systems thinking fit into school classrooms. What strategies and tools could help students and young people connect with systems? Would they even find systems thinking useful for their own work and goals? So when Marta and I got invited to present in a couple classrooms in surrounding towns, we launched our own kind of experiment about systems trainings. Last fall, we designed an introductory three-hour module on systems thinking for a Sustainable Living course at Lyndon State College in northern Vermont. This past May we created a design-thinking curriculum for an AP Environmental Science class at Lebanon High School in New Hampshire. Each opportunity brought its own expectations and challenges due to each unique learning environment and group of students.

Before we arrived at Lyndon State, the professor told us we would enter an environment of pragmatism and varying levels of exposure to sustainability. Most students were adult-learners in the stage of their lives where jobs and family commitments were equal responsibilities to getting a degree. Our hope was to use their individual projects on sustainable living as a way to think about problem solving with systems thinking.

We learned about homemade soaps, small-scale compost systems, foraging for edible plants, and recycled t-shirt bags as examples of sustainable habits. But it was hard to tell which elements of our module stuck with them. The Moon Ball game? The iceberg model? The case study on pesticide dependence in India? Instead, what stood out to them was the joy of sharing ideas with a classmate and learning how to be more open-minded when thinking about a problem. This was again a reminder of how sparking collaboration should remain a key focus of our trainings.

Next were our senior students at Lebanon High School. We prepared a much more hands-on experience, delving deeper into mindsets and how they affect the design of any sustainability campaign. Unlike the students at Lyndon State, these students were eager and ready to make a difference as a team. They were dreamers. They finished our sentences about the importance of root causes, defined systems for us, and set ambitious goals to launch a short campaign for reducing disposable plastics in their school.

We continued working with the students over a month as they envisioned and actualized their campaign. When the campaign was over, we sat in a circle together and reflected on our efforts. Somewhere in the midst of window artwork, pinning ribbons for support, collecting days’ worth of plastic bottles, and gathering signatures, the vision became muddled about what reducing plastics really looks like and how to do it effectively. The students said they could have been more realistic but still learned a lot about what matters and appeals to high schoolers as a way to influence their behavior. Being seniors in the last few weeks of high school they felt that they had limited time, resources, and leverage to truly prevent plastics from entering the school system.

This raised the question for us of how to best partner with school teachers so to help them and their students apply systems thinking and achieve lasting change within the school system.

In both trainings, our goals for the students changed once we better understood the learning environment and the systems of which they were a part. More than ever, I am convinced that systems are truly everywhere, often implicitly rather than explicitly. Seeing systems and working with them takes time and practice. These experiences have helped me reflect on how to adapt when plans change and be more perceptive when trying to match the visions, mindsets, and feasible goals of others. Now onto my next task: carrying these insights from being a teacher talking about systems in the classroom, to being a student of systems in another classroom when I start graduate school this fall!

Researchers at the Stockholm Resilience Center call it the “Great Acceleration.” It’s a surge that has been observed since the ’50s in the data of population, exploitation of resources, use of fertilizers, carbon pollution, fishery depletion, biodiversity loss and more.

Until the 1950s, the effects of human activities were, by comparison, a small thing — almost undetectable.

“In a single lifetime humanity has become a planetary-scale geological force,” said Will Steffen, who led the study in collaboration with the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program.

Meanwhile, the International Commission on Stratigraphy is evaluating whether to add the Anthropocene as a geological epoch, which officially could end up next to the Holocene and Pleistocene in schoolbooks.

The Anthropocene is also a period of raised global awareness. It sees the birth of large social movements (Paul Hawken talks of at least 1 million organizations invested in social change worldwide) and the beginnings of circular and bio-based economies.

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Researchers at the Stockholm Resilience Center call it the “Great Acceleration.” It’s a surge that has been observed since the ’50s in the data of population, exploitation of resources, use of fertilizers, carbon pollution, fishery depletion, biodiversity loss and more.

Until the 1950s, the effects of human activities were, by comparison, a small thing — almost undetectable.

“In a single lifetime humanity has become a planetary-scale geological force,” said Will Steffen, who led the study in collaboration with the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program.

Meanwhile, the International Commission on Stratigraphy is evaluating whether to add the Anthropocene as a geological epoch, which officially could end up next to the Holocene and Pleistocene in schoolbooks.

The Anthropocene is also a period of raised global awareness. It sees the birth of large social movements (Paul Hawken talks of at least 1 million organizations invested in social change worldwide) and the beginnings of circular and bio-based economies.

It is also an unprecedented time of convergence across borders as signaled by the climate accord in Paris, the launch of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals and the encyclical “Laudato Si’” by Pope Francis.

At this special time of acceleration and supranational commitments to sustainability, the business world is increasingly reflecting on its role in society and redefining the boundaries of its social responsibility.

A new consciousness is seeping through parts of the business community, questioning conventional bottom lines, leadership styles, workspaces and the very fundamental belief of the necessity to grow endlessly (think of Patagonia’s “Don’t Buy This Jacket” campaign, which coincidentally brought a spike in sales).

In the meantime, floods, droughts and social unrest linked to climate change are costing businesses dearly.

Thinking in systems

Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch multinational whose products enter the homes of 2 billion people, estimates that drought, reduced agricultural productivity and the consequent increase in food prices cost the company $400 million annually.

In the face of these “mega-challenges” many in the private sector are concerned that political commitments won’t be sufficient to ignite timely action. “Green consumption,” while on the rise, has failed to amount to a transformative force that could shape sustainable production.

Hence the need and the urgency felt by socially responsible companies for a more active and far-sighted role on the part of business. So what is the next big game for corporate social responsibility?

Andrew Winston, in his book “The Big Pivot,” recognizes that it is a unique moment for the private sector, the time to re-discuss worldviews and the very reason for a company to exist.

According to Winston, the role of business should be that of tackling a problem and then use business ingenuity to make the solution profitable, as opposed to creating problems in the first place (such as epidemic in diabetes related — at least in part — to sugary beverages available on the market).

If business more and more sees itself as part of the solution, does it have the leadership, vision and incentives to take on this high-level problem solving?

A vast majority of public companies, especially in the U.S., still operate under strong pressure to maximize short-term profits. And despite efforts by an increasing number of companies to reduce their environmental footprints, only in a few cases these interventions reflect a systemic approach, influenced by an understanding of reality and of the extent of the necessary transformation.

In a single lifetime humanity has become a planetary-scale geological force.

Social entrepreneur and academic Henk Hadders describes the challenge in this way: “We still build the same old institutions to solve new complex problems with the same old set of rules, driven by the same old culture with much the same old school managers and leaders in place.”

The pivotal moment is emerging as one in which the most successful companies will be those who won’t only manage to navigate through growing uncertainty but the ones who will open the doors to innovative models and turn daunting challenges such as climate change into economic opportunities.

This is not an easy and charted course and calls for new leadership that is attuned to how complex systems operate, open to envisioning alternative futures and capable of building strength and vision from the base.

Peter Senge, Hal Hamilton and John Kania call this set of skills “system leadership” in their paper “The Dawn of System Leadership.” Three qualities stand out in systems leaders: the ability to see the whole system (instead of only its parts); the ability to facilitate authentic reflections; and the ability to move from solving problems to co-create a different future.

Anyone who embarks on the path of personal growth and system leadership will encounter Donella “Dana” Meadows, lead author in 1972 of “Limits to Growth.” The book is one of the best known (and accessible) systems analyses published, and focuses no less than on humanity’s fate as population, economy and resource extraction continue to grow within our finite planet.

The study unjustly was accused of catastrophism because it foresaw the collapse of human civilization sometime after 2020-2030 unless humanity slowed down the pace of economic growth and human population. In the 20- and 30-year updates that followed, the authors confirm this worrisome direction and realize that data alone, however accurate and reproducible, are not enough to shake political and economic will.

A small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything.

High potential, according to Meadows, lies in cultivating human qualities that catalyze deep change, qualities such as visioning, the ability to create networks of people with common goals, the ability to create new flows of information and transparency, the ability to remain humble and open to learn, and finally the ability to love.

Meadows devotes an entire book, “Thinking in Systems,” published posthumously in 2008, to these qualities and to the practical understanding of systems for change makers.

“As our world continues to change rapidly and become more complex, systems thinking will help us manage, adapt, and see the wide range of choices we have before us,” wrote Meadows in“Thinking in Systems.”

Many of these choices have to do with recognizing the strength of leverage points in a system: “These are places within a complex system (a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem) where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything.”

One such point of leverage, and one that is most often ignored, is a system’s ultimate goal. Not to be confused with a system’s stated goal, this is what in the end the system produces as a result of its own workings. Because we are born into systems and we inherit them from the previous generation, we rarely ask what the purpose of a family, a school, a company, a monetary system or an economy is.

“If you define the goal of society as GDP,” wrote Meadows, “that society will do its best to produce GDP. It will not produce welfare, equity, justice or efficiency, unless you define a goal and regularly measure and report the state of welfare, equity, justice or efficiency.”

A new breed of business

Explicit goals and their measurements are something that socially responsible companies have understood for a long time when choosing a triple bottom line approach.

But something’s particularly transformational, from a systems perspective, in making it easier for companies to pursue alternative bottomlines.

Thirty U.S. states have passed laws that allow the formation of “Benefit Corporations,”companies that are not required to maximize profits and can decide to reinvest in community and the environment without the risks of being opposed or slowed down by shareholders.

At the moment it is estimated that 1,400 benefit corporations are in 42 states, all committed to redefine the boundaries of their success and their social responsibility.

Another lever for change, which Meadows put high in the list of interventions, are the rules of a system.

“If you want to understand the deepest malfunctions of systems, pay attention to the rules, and to who has power over them,” wrote Meadows.

One rule companies are starting to advocate far more intentionally for than in the past is a price on carbon. And one thing is seeing Ben & Jerry’s, the ultra-progressive Vermont ice cream company, doing this type of advocacy, another thing is seeing six large oil companies — BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Total SA, Statoil ASA, Eni SpA and BG Group — writing Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, demanding a price on carbon.

Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil, by hiding its own information from the public and spending millions to promote misinformation, was misusing another highly important leverage point. Meadows described the critical role of information flows as:

“If I could, I would add an Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not distort, delay, or sequester information. You can drive a system crazy by muddying its information streams. You can make a system work better with surprising ease if you can give it more timely, more accurate, more complete information.”

But the point of intervention that has the most potential to stir profound change, and also the hardest to move, is the mindset out of which the goals, rules and workings of a system arise.

Ray Anderson, the late CEO of Interface Carpet, the leading designer and maker of carpet tile, realized in 1994 that his company was nothing but the direct extension of the petrochemical industry and at age 60 decided to change course.

In his book “Mid-Course Correction,” he wrote,”We have chosen Dana Meadows’ most difficult and most effective place to try to make a difference. The reinvention of Interface reflects the new and more accurate view of reality, a new mindset for a new industrial system. We are going about this reinvention ambitiously, aspiring to become the sustainable corporate model for the next industrial revolution.”

This “new mindset,” which recognizes the finite capacity of ecosystems to absorb pollutants, which aspires to the long term and accounts for environmental costs, brought the 5,000-employee company to a complete transformation of its production and supply chain, and to being well on route to carbon neutrality in 2020.

But Meadows reminds us that the “new mindset” is also one of embracing complexity at a deep level and letting go of the notion that, once we bring them down to their bare-bone elements, systems can be predicted and controlled:

“We can’t impose our will upon a system. We can listen to what the system tells. us, and discover how its properties and our values can work together to bring forth something much better than could ever be produced by our will alone.”

Ultimately, in an accelerating world and on the way to leading big in corporate social responsibility, the question won’t be so much how does business become part of the solution, but how does business reorganize itself to be a vehicle for system change.

The ‘American Dream’ and economy shift like tectonic plates, imperceptible until a collapse like 2008 creates both devastation and opportunity. As economic uncertainty and debt mounted, fewer college students saw the corporate ladder as promising. Since then, ‘dream jobs’ have become entrepreneurial, coming to life through the ‘poetry of science and the precision of art’, often times only fueled by the enthusiasm of it’s creators. But for those of us setting our career trajectories today, the question remains: How can I lead a successful, fulfilling life while contributing to a greater cause?

I consider this a ‘lighthouse question’ – one that I can continually orient myself to as opportunities present themselves. My generation loves authenticity and celebrates bringing an idea to fruition against the odds. True achievement has become the ability to better the world. It is acting on the visceral knowledge that there are more worthy pursuits than money alone.

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The ‘American Dream’ and economy shift like tectonic plates, imperceptible until a collapse like 2008 creates both devastation and opportunity. As economic uncertainty and debt mounted, fewer college students saw the corporate ladder as promising. Since then, ‘dream jobs’ have become entrepreneurial, coming to life through the ‘poetry of science and the precision of art’, often times only fueled by the enthusiasm of it’s creators. But for those of us setting our career trajectories today, the question remains: How can I lead a successful, fulfilling life while contributing to a greater cause?

I consider this a ‘lighthouse question’ – one that I can continually orient myself to as opportunities present themselves. My generation loves authenticity and celebrates bringing an idea to fruition against the odds. True achievement has become the ability to better the world. It is acting on the visceral knowledge that there are more worthy pursuits than money alone. This goes beyond idealizing the ‘starving artist’ or sentimentalizing someone who sacrifices a Wall St. position to serve the poor. It is recognition that pursuing what we love requires courage. Success is never guaranteed and risks are real, but the consequences of inaction will always be more perilous than failure. It is difficult to remember that monumental achievements are the accumulation of small actions.

Philosophers have been meditating on this concept of the ‘good life’ for thousands of years; but it wasn’t until recently that we could ask our smartphones. I had to ask Siri- Apple’s “intelligent assistant” that allows you to obtain information by just speaking to your phone.

Me: “Siri, what is the good life?”

Siri: “OK. Check it out: The good life is a term for the life that one would like to live, or for happiness, associated with the work of Aristotle and his teaching on ethics. People who hope for a better world feel the need for a shared vision of the “good life,” a vision that is flexible enough for innumerable individual circumstances but comprehensive enough to unite people in optimistic, deliberate, progressive social change.”

Growing up, I had always assumed that my sense of uncertainty was temporary until milestones were reached like ‘college’ or ‘jobs’ that would guarantee some type of fulfilling future. This naiveté has been replaced with the simple realization that our lives and choices will always be dynamic, as so few things are in our control. Wendell Berry once wrote that, “It may be that when we no longer know which way to go that we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.” Pressure, conflict, interruption– can change what I am able to offer, strip me of the opportunity to engage, to be fulfilled.

I believe that the good life is one where we collectively contribute to progress, whether it is scientific, artistic, or familial. It could mean finding fulfillment in the ordinary or becoming the catalyst for tectonic shifts in science or social movements. Above all, it is a search for value. Donella Meadows once wrote that, “the planet Earth develops, diversifies, evolves. It does not grow.” This is also true of personal goals- as our environment shifts; we will all have to change. But distilled to its truest sense, the good life seems to mean returning, in some migration of thought or action to the question: ‘what can I contribute?’ and honoring our unique answers through collective action.

Together with other thousands of people I joined civil society in Paris during COP21. The most palpable feeling was a shared sense of gravity and urgency for action. There was also optimism because we all had high hopes for an agreement that has taken decades to develop.

And of course Paris is just the beginning, albeit a strong beginning (see for example John Sterman’s analysis of the significance of the Paris accord).
Paris sets a direction and a pace for emissions reduction that communities, legislators, nonprofits, businesses, artists, and individual citizens can use to plan for clean energy. Just a few days ago Massachusetts nonprofits and communities succeeded in attaching an expiration date to a new natural gas plant, which will be built at the condition of being decommissioned by 2050, the year when countries are expected to achieve net zero emissions (more info).

In the civil society circles around the official negotiations, it was clear that action, talents and intellects shouldn’t be all about “just” carbon.

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Together with other thousands of people I joined civil society in Paris during COP21. The most palpable feeling was a shared sense of gravity and urgency for action. There was also optimism because we all had high hopes for an agreement that has taken decades to develop.

And of course Paris is just the beginning, albeit a strong beginning (see for example John Sterman’s analysis of the significance of the Paris accord).
Paris sets a direction and a pace for emissions reduction that communities, legislators, nonprofits, businesses, artists, and individual citizens can use to plan for clean energy. Just a few days ago Massachusetts nonprofits and communities succeeded in attaching an expiration date to a new natural gas plant, which will be built at the condition of being decommissioned by 2050, the year when countries are expected to achieve net zero emissions (more info).

And another important discussion outside the official negotiations was that the transition to a carbon neutral world cannot happen solely through problem solving. This was clear at PlaceToB, a hostel and co-working space in downtown Paris that organized round tables, creative workshops, radio shows, and media debriefs. There I shared the history of Limits to Growth (and recent data) and guided a visioning practice to open our hearts, minds and will as we built the blocks of a new climate story. We wanted it to be inclusive, compassionate, and deeply different.

Photo: Penny Stephens

With us we had Father Nigel Kelaepa (above), an Anglican priest from the Solomon Islands who traveled all the way to Paris to tell the story of his village and people. He told us that one day he decided to go visit the tombs of his grandparents, but he didn’t seem able to find them any more. He was shocked to find out that the tombs were now under water.

Ultimately the success of the climate accord lies in our individual ability to hold the tension between a difficult reality and an inspiring and uplifting vision of a future that can be smarter and more imaginative than what we have experienced so far. Visioning in fact might well become the most in-need skill on the way to the emerging new normal.

]]>http://donellameadows.org/in-paris-we-felt-it-is-possible/feed/0Running with Ghosts – The Legacy of the Sacred in the Commonhttp://donellameadows.org/9303-2/
http://donellameadows.org/9303-2/#respondMon, 07 Dec 2015 20:24:20 +0000http://donellameadows.org/?p=9303

I find renewal running through forest trails; feeling the memory of a landscape with every step, and changing course to accommodate past events. Tatlock loop, a short trail run on a ridge near my house, is shaped by its history. I find myself skirting around a little ditch that was dug out by spring flooding years ago, only to then leap broad swaths of exposed roots that cling to the soil like crowfeet. When I think of trees, I feel their strength straining towards the sun as their roots press searchingly into the dark soil, coiling around iceberg-like rocks; defiantly anchored against external forces.

To the right, a hay field sways in the summer breeze; a whispering ocean of green stalks. In early mornings, it becomes an expanse of glittering webs pearled with morning dew. What secrets do they guard? I’ve spoken to people with different beliefs. I have run with them on these same trails, skirting old stonewall foundations that sink slowly into the fragrant decay of old leaves, a forgotten shell disappearing under sand.

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I find renewal running through forest trails; feeling the memory of a landscape with every step, and changing course to accommodate past events. Tatlock loop, a short trail run on a ridge near my house, is shaped by its history. I find myself skirting around a little ditch that was dug out by spring flooding years ago, only to then leap broad swaths of exposed roots that cling to the soil like crowfeet. When I think of trees, I feel their strength straining towards the sun as their roots press searchingly into the dark soil, coiling around iceberg-like rocks; defiantly anchored against external forces.

To the right, a hay field sways in the summer breeze; a whispering ocean of green stalks. In early mornings, it becomes an expanse of glittering webs pearled with morning dew. What secrets do they guard? I’ve spoken to people with different beliefs. I have run with them on these same trails, skirting old stonewall foundations that sink slowly into the fragrant decay of old leaves, a forgotten shell disappearing under sand. People who knew different hardships once built hopes, stone by stone, along this same trail in the late 1700s, living and loving and leaving. Before that, the Algonquain language rang out in this place, a watchful legacy unforgotten. The ancient maple trees stand in monument. I have friends who share one or both of these histories; every running step a continuation of glittering spider-thread silk that weaves amongst trees; new hope woven through time in a shared space. Some believe that there are natural energies we can draw on, that landscapes have living memory, and that spirits still wander among us. Others see the beauty and utility of the natural world as the physical manifestation of an invisible God. Everyone knows that land is somehow sacred. There is comfort in hearing origin stories; a friend’s compass that is not mine to scrutinize, but to love.

In the fall, Tatlock loop becomes a cathedral- vaulting branches offering dyed and dying leaves to the dappled autumnal light. This is where I learned the meaning of reverence; deep reds and solemn yellows juxtaposed against the brown, curling leaf edges and lingering green. Passing the stonewall foundations, draped in the stark colors of an impending winter- one remembers there was sadness here. Tatlock Loop is a trail running through the memory of interrupted lives. There has been unimaginable loss here that echoes in the hollowness of dry leaves breaking against iceberg rocks.

As I push against the long, winding hill, where partridge burst out from thickets of wild blackberries, I realize I know nothing. Except that spring snowmelt will turn my trail into a stream, and more crowfeet roots will be exposed holding what I love in place. I am thankful for the monumental strength of trees.

At Christmas my family embraces traditions like old friends and follows the rituals, both sacred and silly, that have been a part of our family for generations. But this year is different. We are breaking with tradition, and declaring a war on ‘stuff’. We’re going beyond the ‘one thing in, one thing out ‘ rule to the draconian measure of having a ‘presents free’ holiday. Well almost, if we can eat it we can wrap it- but everything else will have to be a shared adventure.

To be fair our family has lightened up since Repentance and Obedience Babbott decided to suffer through life in the frozen tundra of New England. We still credit them (blame them really) for our ‘Babbotty” traits, a blanket term we use to explain our inability to dance, our low tolerance for alcohol morally and physiologically, our painful affinity for public embarrassment, and the list goes on.

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At Christmas my family embraces traditions like old friends and follows the rituals, both sacred and silly, that have been a part of our family for generations. But this year is different. We are breaking with tradition, and declaring a war on ‘stuff’. We’re going beyond the ‘one thing in, one thing out ‘ rule to the draconian measure of having a ‘presents free’ holiday. Well almost, if we can eat it we can wrap it- but everything else will have to be a shared adventure.

To be fair our family has lightened up since Repentance and Obedience Babbott decided to suffer through life in the frozen tundra of New England. We still credit them (blame them really) for our ‘Babbotty” traits, a blanket term we use to explain our inability to dance, our low tolerance for alcohol morally and physiologically, our painful affinity for public embarrassment, and the list goes on. However scandalized Repentance and Obedience would be to know how far we’ve fallen off their pious bandwagon, I’m sure we’re doing them proud this year with an intentional return to simplicity.

Our little Vermont cape has neither cable nor TV reception so it was with a mixture of horror and fascination that my Mum happened upon the reality show ‘Hoarders’ on a hotel television a few years ago. The show chronicles the destructive force of ‘things’ to home and health, the consumer equivalent of Pompeii under ash. When confronted with the dangers of their lifestyle, hoarders resist the efforts of family, friends and psychologists to help them literally get out from under their stuff. To Mum the idea of suffocating yourself in materialism was incomprehensible. How do people become so emotionally dependent on things? Why do people buy into our consumer culture to this insatiable degree even when it is so obviously to their detriment?

Amassing more ‘stuff’ is extractive on many levels, sucking resources from the earth and time from our lives. A life can be lost to buying, cleaning, maintaining and disposing of items destined for our landfills and oceans, and to what purpose? Is this our legacy for generations to come, this mess? To break this cycle we are going to embrace our “Babbotty” selves and spend time and money elsewhere, other than on ‘stuff’ this Christmas. We are going to focus our resources on organizations working to solve the political and environmental problems that keep us up at night. And we’re going to enjoy shared experiences that become the stories that bind us together as a family. By taking a step back from the blind consumerism, we’re choosing to take a breath, and celebrate life. Now all there’s left to do is explain this to my 14-year-old sister.

Vermont’s Third New Economy Week (Oct 10-17) celebrated the steps communities have taken to strengthen local food networks, small businesses and renewable energy. It was also a time to consider what Donella Meadows once wrote, “if we human beings are ever going to live in happiness and harmony with each other and with the natural world, we will have to rethink our economics — starting with downgrading the importance of economics in our thinking.” To de-emphasize this ‘economic thinking’, our goal during New Economy week was to explore how to realign values with investment choices.

On October 14th, over 70 people gathered at the Chase Center at the Vermont Law School (VLS) and over 200 followed online as we discussed transforming investments for the sake of climate and community. It was an assembly of neighbors, friends, farmers and business owners gathered to shape their collective future together, the act itself reminiscent of our democratic beginnings.

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Vermont’s Third New Economy Week (Oct 10-17) celebrated the steps communities have taken to strengthen local food networks, small businesses and renewable energy. It was also a time to consider what Donella Meadows once wrote, “if we human beings are ever going to live in happiness and harmony with each other and with the natural world, we will have to rethink our economics — starting with downgrading the importance of economics in our thinking.” To de-emphasize this ‘economic thinking’, our goal during New Economy week was to explore how to realign values with investment choices.

On October 14th, over 70 people gathered at the Chase Center at the Vermont Law School (VLS) and over 200 followed online as we discussed transforming investments for the sake of climate and community. It was an assembly of neighbors, friends, farmers and business owners gathered to shape their collective future together, the act itself reminiscent of our democratic beginnings. It was also testament to the success of a growing movement – where local folks lead regional economic development. The symposium was a marketplace to exchange ideas, access practical investment strategies and meet others who are working towards healthy communities and landscapes. It became clear that moving money away from global assets is ultimately a demonstration of values and an investment in well-being.

Our symposium opened with Gus Speth, Senior Fellow at the Democracy Collaborative and founder of the recently launched New Economy Law Center at VLS. He emphasized the need to change investments and magnify our impact, “whatever your precise vision of the new economy is requires some fundamental change in the management and direction of investments… I don’t think any large-scale change will happen unless we all come together.” This is already happening, as seen in emerging investment clubs, where community members pool their financial resources together and collectively decide what enterprises to invest in. Janice Onge, President of the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund’s Flex Fund, made the point that, “another way to invest in the local economy is to offer our time, energy, and expertise to businesses, because it isn’t just about the money, it’s what comes with money that helps make these businesses successful.” There are many avenues for encouraging growth and innovation regardless of portfolio size.

Maeve McBride, Coordinator for 350Vermont, emphasized that divestment is more than finances and, “is important in giving young people more agency and political capital.” After the panel, participants joined different table discussions to talk to local investment leaders. Subjects ranged from how time banks work, to connecting with networks of entrepreneurs and investors. Some discussions even centered on the economic benefits of carbon farming. As Steve Aldrich of the White River Investment Club so aptly put it, “local folks make decisions together that are potentially transformative.” Many attendees were surprised at how many local investment opportunities were available to them, such as Milk Money VT, which matches Vermont investors with small businesses.

Even before the event was over, many participants committed to taking the next steps in their personal lives as well as their bank accounts, as one anonymous note read, “I feel proud to be part of a community addressing change…. and will invest in our local economy.” As a recent college graduate, it was inspiring to see how many people are creatively working towards an economic future that recognizes the value of well-being, and to see the many opportunities to get involved. Let’s invest in our values by investing in our communities!

“I try to base my life on the idea of self sufficiency- there is just enough for everyone and not one bit more. There is enough for generosity but not waste”

–Donella Meadows, The Global Citizen

Watching the fragility and the resiliency of life play out through my mom’s veterinary practice gave me insights into the biological and social layers of routine decisions. Midnight phone calls would have us suiting up into astronaut-like gear to rescue trapped skunks from surrounding farms (helping both the farmer and the skunk) and releasing them onto our land. Or inadvertently adopting a 15-pound cat with an aggression disorder that continues to spend his life actively trying to be loved or stalking us with intent to kill. I learned to face problem solving with optimism, knowing that with knowledge of suffering comes the obligation to act. As a result, if someone or something needed help, it was there.

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“I try to base my life on the idea of self sufficiency- there is just enough for everyone and not one bit more. There is enough for generosity but not waste”

–Donella Meadows, The Global Citizen

Watching the fragility and the resiliency of life play out through my mom’s veterinary practice gave me insights into the biological and social layers of routine decisions. Midnight phone calls would have us suiting up into astronaut-like gear to rescue trapped skunks from surrounding farms (helping both the farmer and the skunk) and releasing them onto our land. Or inadvertently adopting a 15-pound cat with an aggression disorder that continues to spend his life actively trying to be loved or stalking us with intent to kill. I learned to face problem solving with optimism, knowing that with knowledge of suffering comes the obligation to act. As a result, if someone or something needed help, it was there. When a few clients couldn’t afford to pay the vet bills, we would come home to pies, fresh eggs and veggies piled on the kitchen counter. Other times, clients quietly continue their lives, with healthier animals, and without a word of thanks. Growing up in this environment showed me that the exchange of services extends beyond the monetary, but is a reflection of values and can be a catalyst for compassion. And that compensation can be as little as the personal knowledge that, having confronted an issue, the world is better for it.

When I was on exchange at Dartmouth my junior year, I became interested in ecosystem science and closed loop systems. This background gave me the foundation to start my own nonprofit organization, Cultivating Action, during my last year at Mount Holyoke College. Our current goal is to expand environmental education, and we have been placing aquaponic systems in schools so that students and teachers can experience the thrill of watching scientific concepts come to life. There is something invaluable in seeing a symbiotic relationship in action, and in beginning to recognize our own relationship with the ecosystems we inhabit.

My interest in systems led me to the Donella Meadows Institute, and I started working as Communications and Program support just as everyone was kicking into high gear for the 2015 New Economy Week. It seemed fitting that my first project, would focus on recognizing the value of healthy individuals, communities and landscapes. That fresh veggies on countertops and students invested in understanding lifecycles are more meaningful than their price tag alone. Finding panelists, reaching out to local news outlets and meeting with collaborative organizers was a thrilling dive into what it takes to continue a movement. And through it, I learned what the ‘new’ economy means, as a symposium topic, and a future framework for Vermont.

New Economy Week events will question our current economic structure by examining conventional and radical approaches to moving Vermont forward. The week of Oct. 10th through the 17th is a chance to take part in developing an economy that prioritizes the wellbeing of families and communities over traditional profit, while trusting and encouraging local innovation.

The symposium we have been busy planning is on October 14th from 2:00 to 6:30 at the Chase Center in the Vermont Law School. It will be a place to share stories while exploring local, environmentally conscious investment opportunities. It will be a chance to join next-generation leaders, farmers, businesses and nine organizations in shaping Vermont’s future through investment in: Community projects, decentralized energy, local farm and food systems. We want to help people gain the tools to strengthen communities, be stewards of the land, and align personal investments with principals. And true to Vermont’s finest tradition: We will lead by example.

New Economy Week is a project of the New Economy Coalition, with more information available at http://neweconomyweek.org/. In Vermont, the Donella Meadows Institute is spearheading event organization across the state. Sponsors for Vermont’s New Economy Week include BALE, Donella Meadows Institute, King Arthur Flour, Slow Money Vermont, Clean Yield Asset Management, Two Rivers Ottauquechee Regional Commission, Vermont Law School, Vermont Community Loan Fund, Sustainable Woodstock, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund and others.

I’m so excited to be interning at the Donella Meadows Institute this summer- I’ll be taking classes for my Dartmouth sophomore summer as well, and it’s wonderful to be able to, each afternoon after classes, cross the Connecticut River into a new state and do something that really matters in the world.

Four summers ago, I went to the Dominican Republic to teach summer classes at a school run by a Christian mission organization. I vaguely knew I wanted to get hands-on experience working in a big poverty alleviation scheme, so I decided to do this, and it was much, much more than I had imagined.

The people living in the Dominican Republic, by and large, have been passed over by the global economic system. I saw so much poverty there: the younger brother of one of my students whose stomach was so distended I could barely look at it, one of my good friends who volunteered at the school who had a massive pit behind her house that was their toilet, another volunteer who was sold by her father at the age of seven.

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By Jessica Caron

I’m so excited to be interning at the Donella Meadows Institute this summer- I’ll be taking classes for my Dartmouth sophomore summer as well, and it’s wonderful to be able to, each afternoon after classes, cross the Connecticut River into a new state and do something that really matters in the world.

Four summers ago, I went to the Dominican Republic to teach summer classes at a school run by a Christian mission organization. I vaguely knew I wanted to get hands-on experience working in a big poverty alleviation scheme, so I decided to do this, and it was much, much more than I had imagined.

The people living in the Dominican Republic, by and large, have been passed over by the global economic system. I saw so much poverty there: the younger brother of one of my students whose stomach was so distended I could barely look at it, one of my good friends who volunteered at the school who had a massive pit behind her house that was their toilet, another volunteer who was sold by her father at the age of seven. The fact that all of these people could wake up each morning and go about their lives normally and be happy- not all the time, but a lot of it- was astonishing to my sixteen-year-old self.

When I think back on that summer, yes, I am reminded of Dana’s declarations, so simply and powerfully worded, that “poverty is wrong and preventable [and] the exploitation of one person or nation by another degrades both the exploited and the exploiter”, and it is beautiful to hear it said, to have those truths affirmed in a world that does not seem to care.

But more than that I am reminded of Dana’s emphasis on the intangibles like love, joy, and cooperation. The people I met had something to keep their spirits up, and it wasn’t anything material.

Dana talked and wrote a lot about the power of these intangibles. In essence, most of our environmental problems exist today because of our high consumption rates, which are so high because the world’s richest societies have reached an unspoken consensus that more- more money, more stuff, more prestige- is always better. Will this really make us happy?

Personally, I think that the answer is no, because the worst-case-scenario environmental consequences of society’s collective desire to keep growing ad infinitum could come close to destroying life on the planet as we know it. But the answer is also no because when I was little, I would always wonder what really rich people would do with all their money once they got it.

Writing this blog post and thinking about my philosophy of life, I wonder if endless economic growth is the goal of our society (because, truly, it is) at least in part because the original richest and most powerful people subconsciously worried that if they stopped acquiring wealth and decided to be content with their lives, they would be forced to look at how fulfilling their lives really were, and they might not like the answer.

This idea is as old as the hills, but from a personal level, that summer in the Dominican Republic totally changed the way I thought about life, both others’ and my own. Everybody always says that the most important things in life aren’t things, but it was that summer that made me realize that I, deep down, believe I could not ever be happy if I had none of my favorite things- no nice clothes to choose from, no Internet to play on, no books to read, no piano to play, no money to take vacations or go out to dinner with. It was also that summer that made me wonder if maybe I’m wrong about that- if maybe I could find happiness no matter what situation I was in, if the joy of my faith and of the mountains around Hanover and of sitting with friends on the little sand bank just around the riverbend from Dartmouth could be enough to make me content, if maybe I could find moments of joy even in a life of never enough as my students did.

We try to do so much in our lives and don’t spend nearly enough time to “smell the flowers… feel our bodies, play with children, look openly without agenda or timetable into the faces of loved ones”, as Dana put it. One day I would like to see the whole human race being more grateful for everything that is good in their lives, happier, kinder.

The children in my first-grade class, who were of an age to notice everything that is unfair and bad in their lives much more sharply than adults do, were the happiest children I’ve ever met. I hope to be like a Dominican first-grader someday.